A long, skittering scrape sounded against the windows, dry branches on glass.
Gerrod groaned behind her, stiff in his armor. “Run…”
Laurelle wrinkled her nose. She found that Kytt carried a distinct odor about him. A musk, like a boy after a heavy run, only cleaner, with a slightly woody scent. She stood beside the young wyld tracker as he listened at the door. They were holed up in Brant’s room, listening for noises out in the hallway.
Kytt had taken to sleeping here, watching over the cubbies.
Barrin lolled beside the hearth, all but blocking the glow with his bulk. The two wolfkits wrestled across the breadth of his form, worming under legs, over haunches, growling and nipping at each other. They still used a pair of the giant’s boots as dens at night and had shredded one of Brant’s shirts as bedding.
They had seemed to settle well into the space.
But that was about to change.
Laurelle had come every morning and night for the past three days, slipping out of her halls and down to where the Oldenbrook retinue made their home. As the towers grew more crowded, this level was also shared by the four men from Akkabak Harbor, home of the Gray Traders. Freck-twist, the god of that realm, tolerated only men as his Hands. He had little regard for women in his realm, seeing them as little more than broodmares. His Hands also gleaned that same sentiment, as if burnt into them by his Grace.
She heard them pass by the door, grumbling under their breath. She heard Delia’s name, but she could make out little else. Then they were gone. Laurelle suspected Kytt heard every word as clear as if they were in the room.
“Is it safe?” Laurelle asked.
Kytt held up a hand. She noted that his fingernails were short, but filed to clawed points. In fact, Kytt seemed all sharp edges: tips of ears that poked slightly through his dark hair, the pointed squint of his eyes, even the hint of wolfish teeth when he allowed a shadow of a shy smile to form.
Then Laurelle heard it, too. The approach of two others. She was able to make out their words, spoken with little regard to who might hear, so confident in their positions that they did not bother to blunt their rudeness.
“I can’t believe the regent’s sellwench squirmed her way into my shadow,” Liannora hissed. “She’s certain to be favored by the warden, what with her being Fields’s daughter. I’ll be ignored.”
Her companion consoled her. “Who can ignore you? You shine brighter than the sun when you enter a room.”
“Oh, Sten, you can be so simple sometimes. I see how the warden watches her when that grubbing Hand isn’t looking. There’s no outshining family.” Liannora sniffed with disdain. “If only she stepped down or was made to step down…”
Sten’s voice lowered to a whisper, but by now they were passing the door to Brant’s room. “Missteps do happen. It is easy to trip on a stair. To break a leg…or even a neck.”
Liannora responded in equally low tones, but by then they had moved on down the hall. A bit of laughter carried back, then after another moment, silence.
Laurelle pulled her ear from the door. “Kytt, did you hear what that ice queen said? Were they merely speaking tall or were they serious?”
Kytt shook his head. “Even my ears are only so sharp. Her lips must have been at his ear.”
“I must find Delia.”
“What about the cubbies?” he asked.
She nodded. “We’ll move them first. Like we were planning. Then I’ll seek out Delia and warn her.”
Kytt strode toward the cubbies, sensing her urgency. “You take the boy. I’ll take the girl.”
Laurelle nodded. They had a pair of roughspun carryalls, meant to sling babies across a woman’s chest. They would each take one whelping. The plan was to abscond with the wolf cubbies and carry them up to Lorr’s abandoned rooms. Kytt had heard talk among the Oldenbrook guards that some harm was intended them, and as the wyld tracker was not of their realm, he had no real authority to stop them. The wolves remained the retinue’s property.
So the plan was to get them somewhere safe.
But thievery was beyond either of their skills. They didn’t know how anyone from Oldenbrook might respond, so they intended to make the move without any eyes about. The cubbies had escaped once already. It would be easy to explain away another disappearance.
Laurelle gathered up her carryall and lured the smaller of the two cubbies, the boy, notable for the extra white on the tips of his black ears, with a piece of dried mutton. She had the cubbie quickly bundled and contentedly chewing the salted meat. A low growling flowed as she slung the carryall over one shoulder and cradled the wolf across her chest.
Kytt had his cubbie, too. He held her back from the door, leaned his ear, listened for another couple of breaths, then nodded.
Barrin was already on his paws, ready to follow.
Kytt opened the door and led the way out. Laurelle followed. The bullhound padded after them.
The hallway was empty, except for one of the knights at the level’s landing. They moved quickly. A door opened behind them. Voices carried. Guards.
Ducking down, hidden by the bulk of the bullhound, Laurelle heard Sten, captain of the guard, call brusquely toward them. “Who goes there?”
Kytt shrugged off his carryall and slid it over to Laurelle. He motioned for her to continue. Barrin’s form filled the hall. With care, she should be able to reach the stairs without the guards seeing her.
She squeezed Kytt’s hand, then sidled low to the floor, close to one wall. Kytt straightened behind her, edged past Barrin, and signaled by hand for the bullhound to keep his place.
The wyld tracker called to the guards. “It is only I,” he said, though surely the guards knew Kytt. Who else traveled with a bullhound? Plainly they only sought amusement by hassling the young tracker.
Laurelle reached the stairs, laden with two squirming cubbies, both arguing in low growls through the roughspun at one another. She thanked the gods of the aether that neither of the two barked. The knight at the landing glanced to her above his masklin. She nodded and slipped around to the stairs.
Behind her, Kytt spoke with exaggerated loudness. “I was just seeing to the cubbies. Making sure they had fresh milk and feed.”
“A duty you won’t need much longer,” one of the guards said.
Laughter followed Laurelle out to the stair.
“Especially with the regent turning arse-end and running,” another said. “No need any longer for two cubbies.”
“And Liannora definitely could use a warm muff to match her new cloak.”
“Now that’s a muff I wouldn’t mind slippin’ a hand into,” one whispered.
“Don’t let Sten hear you say that.”
More rough laughter chased Laurelle round the stairs. She climbed, her heart thumping and a fire building in her chest.
“Off with you, then,” the guards barked to Kytt. “Before that dog of yours shites all over our hall.”
“Or he does!” his companion said. “Look at that nose on the boy. I wonder if trackers use it to sniff each other’s arses.”
Kytt appeared below, rounding up with Barrin. His face blushed through his tanned skin. He quickly joined her and accepted his burden back. Together, they climbed the seven levels to the floor where Lorr kept his rooms.
In short order, they had the cubbies behind doors and a fire burning in the cold hearth, and Barrin was again sprawled and already snoring.
“I should be returning to my rooms.” Laurelle rose from where she had been scratching one of the whelpings on the belly.
“They are calm with you,” Kytt said, nodding to the cubbie.
She warmed more than she should have at his generous word. “Dribbling milk over my fingers for the past three mornings and nights was what truly won them over. We had a houndskeep back…back home in Weldon Springs. That’s off near Chagda Falls.”
“I know where Weldon Springs lies,” he mumbled.
“Of course you do.” She shook her head at herself. Kytt’s own realm, Idlewyld, lay on the opposite coast of
